Smart science fights other viruses
Flu virus can be targeted by tech that tracked Covid
Smart science that’s helped New Zealand successfully tackle Covid-19 could soon be turned against other viral nasties that kill hundreds of Kiwis each year.
Experts say the capacity and expertise labs around the country have built up in our pandemic response can next be used to combat infectious diseases like seasonal flu.
Otago University and ESR virologist Dr Jemma Geoghegan saw particular potential to use genome sequencing on all notifiable diseases — among them influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
“There’s also potential for it with things like norovirus, because it’s clear the genomics can provide a rich source of information to deal with it.”
Decoding or “sequencing” the genetic jigsaw that is the SARS-CoV-2 virus’ genome has been a crucial part of the public health response to Covid-19 here and overseas.
Investigating the spread of the virus into a population can leave scientists with a spaghetti-like mess to untangle — but genomic sequencing can quickly tell them where a specific case came from, and pick it apart from other cases in the community.
A study led by Geoghegan — and just published in major scientific journal Nature Communications — set out how scientists sequenced hundreds of virus genomes during New Zealand’s first wave, between and February and May.
Despite the comparatively tiny size of Covid-19’s incursion here, the team reported 277 separate introductions of the virus, out of 649 cases analysed.
Upscaling that effort to track influenza cases across New Zealand would prove a big challenge — more
than 200,000 Kiwis catch the flu each year, and at least 500 people die from it.
But Geoghegan said this work was done elsewhere.
“The Peter Doherty Institute in Melbourne, for example, sequences notifiable diseases and has an amazing influenza virus dataset, so I think we could do that here, too.”
She said the bulk of this sequencing could be done in regional labs, with a central hub that collated and shared the data. “If we were having another sort of nationwide outbreak, it could be good to have a UK-style consortium, where all genomes are uploaded to a centralised database,” she said.
“Having a clearer picture of patterns of respiratory viruses here would be really helpful for understanding what can happen, while monitoring genetic diversity would tell us more about how, where and when flu is entering the country and circulating.”
ESR virologist Dr Sue Huang said, just like coronavirus, there were ways for New Zealand to sequence the whole genome of each influenza case. “Genome-sequencing influenza cases is on ESR’s radar, building on the capability built for Covid-19,” she said.
“The whole-genome sequencing for flu viruses will inform us where the viruses comes from, how they spread within New Zealand in a geographic and temporal perspective.
“Most importantly, it would allow us to track how viruses change and whether such a change is significant for considering new vaccine strain for the following year.
“Furthermore, by sequencing the historic collection held by ESR we could study how and if influenza was introduced through travel historically as suggested by this year’s numbers.”
It comes as researchers just published data revealing the dramatic side-effect of New Zealand’s Covid-19 elimination strategy, with flu rates down 99.9 per cent compared with four years ago. Meanwhile, another new study has found internet searches, Healthline calls and school absenteeism data could alert health officials to a disease outbreak days ahead of other systems.
ESR researchers have found these could have offered an early headsup to the disastrous Havelock North campylobacter outbreak in 2016.